Heads of EADS, Airbus resign over A380 delays

The heads of the European aerospace group EADS and its Airbus subsidiary have resigned over delays to deliveries of the A380 superjumbo, which have wiped 5.5 billion euros (US$6.5 billion) off EADS's shares and pushed Airbus into the wake of US rival Boeing.

The two companies issued terse statements announcing EADS's French co-chief executive Noel Forgeard and Airbus's German head Gustav Humbert were stepping down. Forgeard in particular has been under intense pressure to quit since it was revealed he sold EADS shares worth millions of euros just before the group announced the Airbus A380 delivery delays.

(2006-07-05 18:09:12 SGT) [Biz] Permalink

Russia plans atomic energy expansion

channelnewsasia.com :

Russia is planning to expand the share of atomic energy in its total energy consumption from the current 16% to up to 24% in the coming decade, Minister for Energy and Industry Viktor Khristenko has revealed. Russia will start building new atomic energy reactors next year, with the reactors due to begin operating in 2011 or 2012, Khristenko said.

Russia is keen to expand its nuclear industry at home and abroad and has made bringing energy to developing countries a theme of its chairmanship of the G8 (Group of Eight) nations. Moscow is building Iran's first nuclear power station at Bushehr, in the southwest of the country, amid international criticism of Iran's nuclear programme.

Russia makes ruble fully convertible

channelnewsasia.com :

Russia has lifted currency controls in a sign of new-found economic confidence less than eight years after the country defaulted on its massive domestic debt, devalued its currency and wiped out Russians' savings. "Now it will be more attractive to invest in Russia - this will increase investors' interest in Russia," Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said on national television. Recent moves to begin trading oil and gas in rubles would help build confidence and increase demand for the Russian currency.

These signs of economic stability are in stark contrast to August 1998, when Russia defaulted on 40 billion dollars of domestic debt and the ruble went into free fall as Russians sought frantically to withdraw their ruble savings and buy dollars. The crisis, which happened despite a 22.6-billion-dollar loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), scared away foreign investors from the country and triggered an unprecedented flight of capital from Russia.

(2006-07-05 12:55:47 SGT) [Biz] Permalink

US Air Force to test alternative jet fuel blend

peakoil.com -> news.yahoo.com :

In September 2006, a U.S. Air Force B-52 bomber will take off with a new kind of jet fuel that can be derived from coal or natural gas. Two of its eight engines will be burning a mix of half oil-derived JP8 fuel and half a clean-burning alternative made from natural gas. According to studies by the U.S. Energy Department and Department of Defense, the alternative fuel is economic to use when oil prices are around $50 a barrel - well below current levels above $70 a barrel.

The U.S. military wants to buy up to 200 million gallons of alternative synthetic aviation fuel in 2008. That would be only a fraction of the 5 billion gallons of jet fuel the military burns every year, but it could nudge the industry toward more wide-scale production. U.S. passenger and cargo carriers, which burned nearly 20 billion gallons of jet fuel in 2005, are paying attention. That's because every penny increase in jet fuel prices costs them about $200 million in extra annual operating costs, according to the Air Transport Association of America.

(2006-07-05 12:50:15 SGT) [Energy] Permalink

Jellyfish-like creatures may play major CO2 role

peakoil.com -> ascibe.org :

Transparent jellyfish-like creatures known as salps, considered by many a low member in the ocean food web, may be more important to the fate of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide in the ocean than previously thought. In the May issue of Deep Sea Research, scientists report that salps, about the size of a human thumb, swarming by the billions in "hot spots" may be transporting tons of carbon per day from the ocean surface to the deep sea and keep it from re-entering the atmosphere.

One swarm covered 100,000 square kilometers (38,600 square miles) of the sea surface. The scientists estimated that the swarm consumed up to 74% of microscopic carbon-containing plants from the surface water per day, and their sinking fecal pellets transported up to 4,000 tons of carbon a day to deep water. Scientists also showed that when salps die, their bodies also sink fast - up to 475 meters (1,575 feet) a day, far faster than most pellets. If salps are really a dead-end in the food web and remain uneaten on the way down, they could send even more carbon to the deep.

(2006-07-05 12:45:17 SGT) [Env] Permalink Comments [1]

China struggling to reduce energy consumption

english.people.com.cn :

China will be struggling to meet targets for reducing energy consumption unless it takes serious measures to change its economic growth patterns, experts said. In the first four months this year, China's coal consumption rose by 13.8% over the same period last year, coke, 11% and electricity, 12.5%, while China's GDP growth continues at around 10% this year.

Five industrial sectors - iron and steel, chemicals, building materials, oil and coke refining and electricity and heat generation - use over half of the country's total energy consumption. Some steps have been taken to raise the prices of refined oil products, coal and electricity, but the price rises are still not large enough as only a market-oriented pricing system could act as a real signal for efficient energy consumption.

(2006-07-05 12:41:37 SGT) [Energy] Permalink

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